Fish + Feet = FEAR

Yesterday was a momentous day, well the night was anyways.
A group of us girls decided to go to a place called Dr. Fish. We had heard many things about it, and one of my teachers said apparently it's originally from Turkey.
First, you walk in and order a beverage. There was a selection of many coffees and smoothie-type drinks to enjoy along with toast that was "service" or free.
We had to pay 2,000W ($2) to go over to the foot "spa".
Now, most of you know how much I hate feet. They are not the nicest, cleanest part of your body. Well, this foot spa is actually a small tub in the floor full of little fish (they are like oversized minnows). Their job is to surround your feet and find the dead skin and eat it off - GROSS! I feel like there is no way anyone can complain about their job after hearing what these fish do for a living!!!


Some of the girls (Andrea, Shana, Val and Tina) had no problem sticking their feet in. Katy, Shauna and I were a different story!
I was so afraid and grossed out about doing it, but Shauna and Katy were even worse. So it helps me to be brave when others are more scared - they were terrified of the fish part, me the feet.
I was freaking out and had my feet hovering over the pool when the man working there just pushed my feet in!! I was SHOCKED and freaking out and my eyes teared right up, but I was brave and kept my feet in for the rest of the 10 minutes or so that were left out of 15.




The fish eating the dead skin is not really ticklish or painful. It's more kind of prickely (?) like your foot is numb. If they went between the toes though, that was pretty ticklish. At times the weird feeling was too much and I had to think about other things...I went to my "happy place." (It's a land where the Leafs win the cup with Doug Gilmour as coach, and I'm the sports psychologist...HAHAHAHA)That was a little odd to admit tell everyone, but it helped!!

On my way to school...

I just thought I'd give you a little picture tour through my daily journey to school. Well, really it's only the last 5 minutes as the first 20 are spent on the bus. It's particularly pretty now with the cherry trees all flowered.



I have no idea what these trees are, but the flowers are really big and most of them are white. The second picture is in front of my school. This tree/bush has huge purple flowers...









Along the way I come to a park. This park is lovely for children and also includes exercise machines for adults...it's quite normal for exercise machines to be in the park.











Then I cross through a parking lot...there are often a lot of cars here. Many times in Korea cars are double parked/block other cars in. Sometimes I see people pushing cars backwards or forwards just to get their own car out (I guess some people leave their car in neutral or Koreans are EXTREMELY strong for their size).






I meant to blog about this a long time ago, but one of the more interesting things I discovered while here is that most car owners will place their phone number in the dashboard of their car (is it weird that I find that so interesting??). A lot of times it's on a cute little pillow (the second car has a pillow, it's a little far away). I'm assuming this is for other people to call them to move the car, or call them if they back into the car while parallel parking...or maybe just to see if the cars for sale! Not exactly sure on all the rules - I just think it's crazy that they just place their phone numbers in plain view.













Interesting eh??? haha
The last thing I come across before entering through those looming school gates are the students who have the job of crossing guard. Amazing what they make students do in this country...



Have a good weekend all. Shana's sister arrives on Monday for a couple weeks which is going to be lots of fun! Also, my thoughts and prayers are with the Donkersloots as they (we!) all await the new baby!!

Korean Musical

This week is a nice little break for me.
2 of the grades (1/3 of the school) are on field trips. The oldest level (grade 9) is still in school, but today they were going on a field trip to see a musical. I was invited to come along!
I was not quite sure if I would like it since it was most likely going to be in Korean. But I figured that a musical is singing and dancing and I could still enjoy that.
Turns out it was much different than I thought. The title was "The Ballerina and the B-boy." B-boy, I found out, means breakdancing-boy. It was a story about 2 different dancing groups and how in the end a ballerina and breakdancer fall in love despite their vastly different dance styles and the prejudice shown toward the ballerinas, who were deemed inferior dancers by the breakdancing group.
In the end, however, the ballerina comes to meet the breakdancers in the park wearing street clothes instead of her tutu. Finally, some snobby girls notice her and out her as the ballerina. They let her take a try at breakdancing, and it turns out she's great! She earns their respect and the love of the b-boy!
I'm not sure if it was more about love or how awesome it is to be a breakdancer! haha
The ballerinas did do an amazing job though, I was impressed with all the different kinds of dance.
The entire musical was just done with popular dancing songs (classical, hip hop, disco etc) and was entirely danced or acted with facial expressions or dancing. There was no dialogue at all really! So it was easy for any language to understand. Apparently, they've done this show around the world.




It was a great way to spend a working Tuesday. I bonded with lots of girls in the park beforehand where we ate lunch.





Tomorrow is back to work, but a slow day as the other classes are still on their trips. Thursday is when everything is back to normal! :)